


Hourglass

by Teacandles



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-07
Updated: 2012-11-07
Packaged: 2017-11-18 04:34:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/556957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teacandles/pseuds/Teacandles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles has five months and three days until the end. Erik isn't ready to say goodbye, but he has time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hourglass

**Author's Note:**

> Older work done for [this prompt](http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/6437.html?thread=9811237#t9811237) on the kink meme that I fixed up for the archive because I was tired of looking at the typos/grammatical errors and figured posting something might help get me out of the current writing slump I'm in.

The phone is ringing.

Erik pointedly ignores it, all the while hoping that the noise doesn’t disturb Charles. It’s the first time he’s gotten any decent sleep in what seems like months, and Erik’s not about to jostle him around for some solicitor or long lost relative hoping to worm their way into Charles’s pocketbook before everything finally plays itself out. They’d had enough such disturbances over the past three weeks.

The second ring passes, and Charles doesn’t stir. Good. He could sleep through most anything before all this, and it’s mildly comforting to know that at least one thing hasn’t really changed.

Third ring. Erik lazily brushes a hand over Charles’s head as he watches the flickering light of the television without really registering the images flashing across the screen. Charles’s hair is nowhere near as long as it should be, but it’s getting there. With how quickly it had always grown in the past (haircuts every other week it seemed), Erik is surprised at how long it had taken for it to get to this length. Now, after finally being able to run his hands through Charles’s hair again after so many months of nothing but bald skin (often covered by hats and scarves and all manner of things Raven could manage to find), Erik silently regrets every time he had cursed the pace of its growth in the past. He tangles his fingers in deep next to Charles’s scalp and focuses his attention on his breathing. Erik is pretty sure that if he doesn’t think about it, his lungs will stop pulling in the air he desperately needs.

Fourth ring. A woman is telling him all about the benefits of some sort of laundry detergent. Apparently it makes shirts softer or their colors more bright. Or something. He’s not really paying attention. The steady rise and fall of Charles’s chest against his own is too distracting.

The machine is answering the call. The familiar voice of Charles’s sister comes out through the speakers, her words faintly muffled by flutters of white noise, and he wonders briefly where she is. The wind was strong outside when he’d ventured out earlier, and from the sound of the rustling branches snapping against the house, it had only gotten worse. Perhaps Raven was meeting someone out there right now—a friend, a new boyfriend perhaps, but Erik can’t muster up the energy to deal with her. She can wait.

“Erik. Erik, come on. I know you’re there because you’re not answering your cell. Now pick up the phone.” He sighs but makes no move to get up. The TV drones on. He’s sure that if he ignores her long enough, Raven will go away. “Erik, if you don’t pick up right now I’m going to come over there, I swear.” She sighs when he does nothing, her breath crackling through the speakers. “Charles, if you’re awake, make him answer.”

Right on cue, Charles shifts against his chest, and Erik’s grip around Charles’s shoulders tightens unconsciously.

“Mmnh. Is that the phone?” God, he’s too warm. Probably another fever. Erik’s amazed that it took him this long to notice. He rubs Charles’s shoulder and presses a kiss to his temple before shifting out of Charles’s reach. He pulls away from the couch and pushes himself to his feet, stretching a bit to remove the stiffness that had settled in his legs.

“Yeah, it’s your sister.”

Charles curls up over the warm spot Erik has left behind and watches him with a sleepy smile. “Then you’d best not keep her waiting. You know how Raven can get when she worries.”

Erik smiles back at him, though he is certain it doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s so damn hard to be happy about anything nowadays. His steps seem oddly heavy as he trudges over to the phone and answers the call.

“What do you want, Raven? Charles was asleep. The operative word there being ‘was.’” He keeps his voice low and his back to the other room, trying to keep the conversation as quiet as possible.

“I was worried about you guys, jerk. No need to snap at me.”

He rolls his eyes and leans against the wall, what little patience he’d had before picking up the phone swiftly draining away with every passing second. “And you just woke your brother up from one of the first real sleeps he’s had since we got the news. I believe I have every right to ‘snap at you,’ my dear.”

She’s silent for a moment, a rarity for Raven. She’s very quiet when she finally speaks again, timid almost. “Sorry. I just…how’s he doing?”

Erik sighs and turns to look at where he’d left Charles on the couch. He’s curled up like a little kid in that stupid knit blanket he’s insisted on carrying around the house for the past few days, his thinning frame swamped under piles of faded blue fabric. He looks to be watching the television, but his attention probably isn’t focused on the program at all. If Erik’s right about the fever, Charles might well be delirious right now, and the ever-present anxiety that had been gnawing away at his sanity ever since they were told of Charles’s relapse returns with a vengeance.

He swallows to clear away the lump in his throat and threads his fingers through his hair in a sad attempt at calming himself down. “It’s not a good night tonight.” An understatement, but as far as nights go, it’s not really a been that bad of one either. He has to keep reminding himself of that. At least Charles isn’t vomiting like he had been last night. _That_ had been a nightmare and a half, especially when Charles had started fighting him about medication and fluids until Erik had threatened him with making yet another hospital visit. Two Master’s degrees and a PhD and still Charles couldn’t quite seem to grasp the concept of dehydration and the detrimental effects of nourishment leaving one’s body without actually, well, _nourishing the body_. It baffles him at times how a man as smart as Charles could be so incredibly stupid when it came to things like this.

“Oh. Okay.” Raven’s voice snaps him out of his stupor. She suddenly sounds incredibly young to his ears, even though he can barely hear her above the white noise coming through the line. He knows how hard this is for her—it’s hard on everyone—but his patience is nearly gone.

“I—Raven, I need to go.”

“Okay. Okay, I—I’ll…I just wanted to let you guys know that I can’t make it over there at the usual time tomorrow. Hank needs some help moving things out of his old apartment still, and I—” 

“It’s fine, Raven.” Charles hates having you see him like this anyway.

“I’ll be over later, though. Like six or seven, I promise. I’ll bring pizza or something. He still likes pizza, right?” She mumbled the last part mostly to herself, and Erik allowed himself a small smile.

“How about you call instead when you finish up? Ah, before you get here? That way I can wake Charles up if he’s asleep and get him presentable. Then we can all decide on what to do instead of fumbling around like idiots.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.” She pauses. Erik can hear the sounds of the street behind her, passing cars and people all blurring together into little more than static. “Can I talk to him?”

Erik looks over at Charles. He hasn’t moved in the few minutes Erik’s been on the phone, but he still seems at least semi-conscious. A phone call can’t hurt, and talking to Raven usually helps cheer Charles up. “Sure. Just give me a minute.”

He walks over to the couch, his hand covering the mouthpiece of the phone to drown out the noise of the television. Charles is almost asleep again, but he looks up when Erik approaches. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. She just wants to talk to you, see how you’re doing.” Charles snorts at that. She already knows how he’s doing. She visits every day and even threatened to move in with them after his scare last week. Erik grins a little at that. “She’s just worried about you, and you know how she gets when she worries.” Charles rolls his eyes as his words from earlier come back to him, but he accepts the phone as Erik sits down on the edge of the couch’s armrest.

Erik turns his attention back to the television the second Charles answers the call. It’s none of his business what goes on between Charles and his sister. A man is now waxing poetic about the superiority of his law firm and how masterfully they dealt with car accident cases, and Erik wonders just what exactly they had been watching before the commercial break. It seems like he’s been watching ads for ages.

The quiet murmur of Charles’s voice is soothing, and Erik allows himself to be lulled into a daze. Things were so much easier before Charles got sick. He glances down at the man he loves and feels something twist in his chest. God, he’s so _little_ now, like he’s wasting away to nothing. Erik tears his eyes away and folds his arms over his chest to ground himself back in reality. It was okay. Dr. Anderson had given them six months. It wasn’t much, but it was still time. They still had five months and three days until the end.

They still had time.

\---

He had met Charles completely and totally by accident when his neighbor’s dog had conveniently decided to drown itself in the pond. The damn thing was far too stupid and excitable for an animal of that size, but elderly Mrs. Warner loved him and refused to give him up, even after her fall rendered her unable to be dragged around the block for Boris’s ten minutes or so of exercise a day. Erik wasn’t the nicest guy in the world, but he wasn’t so callous as to turn down the little old woman’s desperate plea. He’d walk the damn dog until she could find a professional (or rather, some pimply-faced kid needing to earn a few extra dollars) to do it instead.

There had been ducks that day. Ducks that Erik was absolutely certain Boris had seen a thousand times before but somehow seemed new and exciting to the massive walking carpet that was Erik’s borrowed dog.

“Come on.” He jerked at the leash, but Boris refused to move, entranced by the birds lazily drifting across the water. “Come _on_ , you stupid mutt. I don’t have all day.” And that’s when the dog took off. Boris made a run for the water, dragging Erik along by the leash wrapped tightly around his wrist.

“No, no, no, no, no, _no_. Stop, damn you!” And they hit the water like a ton of bricks.

Erik clawed frantically at the tie around his wrist until it came free, and he swam for the surface, leaving the dog to fend for himself as water forced its way into his eyes and nose, leaving behind sharp twinges of fire in its wake. He broke the surface of the pond with a gasp as he gained his footing against the pliant soil below. The cold November air on his water-logged skin brought him back to his senses and he whipped around, looking for the stupid animal that had dragged him into the water.

A sharp whistling to his right caught his attention. Standing there on the shore was a man waving his arms about and managing, somehow, to catch the attention of the dog. It figured, Erik grumbled under his breath as his fumbled for the line of trees at the shore. Leave it to a stranger to have more control over Boris than the man who had walked him every day for the past week and a half. And to top it all off, the damn ducks that had started this whole mess were probably long gone after that little debacle. Erik would have nothing but an oversized mutt to throttle for this mess.

When he finally managed to trudge out of the water, Erik found the stranger waiting for him, one wriggly, giant, sopping wet dog in tow.

“Here,” he said with a smile, handing the loop of the leash over to Erik. “I think this belongs to you.”

Erik took it and scowled at Boris, fighting the urge to kick him. “Thanks. He’s not mine,” he quickly added. Erik would never allow himself to own a dog this stupid and this poorly trained.

“Oh. Do you walk dogs for a living, then?”

“No.” Erik wiped away the dripping strands of hair that were falling into his eyes, noticing for the first time that the stranger’s clothes were streaked with muddy water in patterns that looked suspiciously like paw prints. He gestured at the man’s shirt. “I am sorry about that, though.”

He looked down at himself and his face lit up in surprise as though he had only just now noticed the stain. “Huh, lucky that I don’t particularly care for this shirt, I suppose.”

Erik frowned and looked the stranger up and down before swiping a hand through his hair again with a sigh. “Do you have a pen or something? I wouldn’t ask, but…” He looked down at himself, grimacing at the way his wet clothes clung uncomfortably to his frame.

The man before him blushed and dug through his pockets. “Yes. Ah, here. Here you go.”

“Thanks.” Erik grabbed the pen and the stranger’s hand, popping the cap off with his teeth. He quickly scribbled his name and phone number onto the man’s palm. “That’s me,” he said as he released the guy from his grip. “Unfortunately I can’t stay and chat because of _him_.” He glared at the dog at his feet, happily dripping away on the sidewalk. “But maybe we can meet up for coffee or something, so I can pay you back for ruining your shirt and for saving the dog.”

“I’d like that,” he looked down and quickly read the sloppily written name on his hand with a smile, “Erik. I’m Charles, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Charles. Hopefully the next time I see you I make a better impression.” Erik glanced at his watch (thank god for waterproofing) and balked at the time. Crap. With the shower and change of clothes he now needed, he was going to be late. “I’ve got to go. Thanks. For ah, everything.”

“Until next time, then.” Erik tried to tamp down the warm feeling rising up in his chest and nodded his goodbye, tugging hard on Boris’s leash.

“C’mon, you lazy mutt. Let’s get you home.”

\---

Erik glances over his shoulder as he places the phone back in its holder on the wall. Charles is twisting the corners of his blanket around in his hands the same way he bunches up the sleeves of his sweaters whenever something is bothering him.

“Something wrong?”

Charles startles a bit at the sound of his voice. The blanket drops from his hands and he shakes his head to clear it. “No. Nothing’s wrong.”

“You sure?” Erik covers Charles’s forehead with his hand without bothering to wait for an answer. “You’re temperature’s up again.”

“It’s fine, Erik. I spike fevers all the damn time.”

Erik drops down beside him on the couch and pillows Charles’s head on his shoulder once more. “I know. Doesn’t mean I can’t worry.”

Charles pushes him away and gets to his feet. He isn’t unsteady like Erik figured he would be, but he still looks so eerily thin, like a sad imitation of the man he’d fallen in love with. Charles threads his fingers through his hair and paces frantically in front of the TV. His figure throws the dancing patterns on the walls out of sync. “Erik, I…oh god, Erik, I’m going to die.”

That hard lump is back in his throat. “Yeah, I thought we’d already gone over that part. Now sit back down. You shouldn’t be pushing it if you’re trying to get sick again.”

“You just don’t get it, do you? I’m _already_ —I’ve only got what, three months tops? Yeah, three months until I can’t even leave the house anymore, and you know it. God, I can barely do anything right now as it is, and I just…fuck it, Erik. What are we doing?” His voice is breaking with emotion, and his steps have become unsteady. Erik had known this was coming, but it is still harder to watch than what he’d imagined after talking to their counselor.

“Charles, please.” He keeps his voice calm even though he wants nothing more than to shake the man in front of him until he takes back his decision to refuse treatment. He knows how badly it had taken Charles down last time, but the promise of a few more months, maybe even a year or two, with the man he loved was far too tempting. He swallows and keeps his eyes trained on Charles in case he decides to do something stupid.

Charles stills and lets his shoulders slump forward in defeat. He looks at Erik like his world is coming to an end, and Erik can’t make it any better because his already is; reality didn’t mean much of anything anymore after Charles’s diagnosis. “Erik, I—” He licks his lips and locks their eyes together. “I don’t want to die.”

“Charles…”

“I need you to know that. I know that my decision is essentially a slow suicide, but you know as well as I that I wouldn’t make it through chemo again. Not after last time. I just…I can’t, Erik. I don’t want to die, but there’s no other way around it, is there? Not now, anyway.”

Erik stands and gathers Charles into his arms. There are so many things he wants to say, but words fail him.

_It’s all right, Charles._

_We’re never going to have kids or travel the world like you wanted. You probably aren’t even going to live to see thirty, but that’s okay because we still have five months. A lot of people don’t get that luxury._

_We still have time._

“We still have time,” he whispers aloud, but he’s not sure Charles can hear him. He’s not sure who he’s comforting anymore.

\---

Erik finally gets Charles to bed at a quarter past midnight, and now he can’t get his mind to settle down. Charles is a warm and comforting presence against his chest, and Erik can’t stop thinking about, well, everything.

He closes his eyes and breathes in deep, catching Charles’s scent and burning it deep into his head. It’s not entirely pleasant—he can still smell traces of sweat and that sickly sweet smell of illness that’s almost a constant around them nowadays, but it’s still Charles.

‘In sickness and in health.’ That was one of the stipulations of marriage, right? In the religious sense, anyway. Not that it matters; he couldn’t have married Charles if he’d wanted to. The sickness part, though, he has that down. He wonders how many couples actually make it this far when things like this strike, and he stares out into the dark expanse of his and Charles’s shared room. The stillness that had always lulled him to sleep is disquieting tonight, and he can’t fathom why. Some latent fear of the dark coming to rear its ugly head perhaps.

Charles stirs a bit under his hands, and Erik tries his best to relax. He thinks of happier times spent out on the porch talking about Mendel, global politics and how miserable of a cook Charles is. He longs for the lazy summer days eating lunch late in the afternoon under a tree in the very same park where the two of them had met and playing chess at the kitchen table late into the night. Charles had always been so optimistic and sure in everything he did, but his illness had taken that confidence away.

And as much as he hates to admit it, even to himself, Erik misses the man Charles used to be, and he hates himself just a little bit for it.

Erik closes his hands around Charles’s and keeps his breathing as steady as he can muster. _This will all be okay_ , he tells himself. Charles at least has the time to say goodbye.

Time.

Erik looks at the clock and suddenly feels more tired in that moment than he had in almost a week. He needs to sleep; he needs to allow himself this one thing because he has five months yet to say goodbye. It’s nowhere near enough time, but it’s something.

He still has time.

\---

The phone is ringing.

Erik makes no move to answer it.

\---

“Erik? You need to cut out this not answering the phone crap, okay?”

…

“Come on, I know you guys are there. Is everything okay?”

…

“I’m coming over.”

\---

He finally breaks two days after the funeral.

Erik wanders into the bathroom to brush his teeth. It’s his first night back at the house since Charles’s death, and he slept on the couch, unable to bear spending the night in his (their) bed. Everything is hazy, like some sort of terrible dream that he can’t quite escape, and right now he wants nothing more than to get the taste of sand out of his mouth.

He turns the tap on and sees Charles’s toothbrush sitting there on the sink right where he’d left it. Erik picks it up and studies it, marveling at the hideous green plastic of the handle. Someone, somewhere, thought that color was attractive, didn’t they? Otherwise it never would have made its way into the market and since they had bought it, someone probably thinks that other people find the color attractive too. Soon there would be nothing available but ugly toothbrushes. Charles had never thought much about things like this. Erik always suspected the Charles had been a bit colorblind.

His hand is shaking. He can see the purple handle of his own toothbrush just out of the corner of his eye, but he makes no move to grab it. He can’t. Charles should be here, shoving him out of the way to use the sink first and forcing Erik into the shower. He should be here, with his bed head and morning breath that was never as bad as he claimed it was. He should be here.

His knees go weak, and he grabs at the sink before falling to the floor. The water is still running. Static is filling his ears, and he can’t breathe. Charles should be here. They still had five months.

Raven is suddenly there in the doorway. Erik looks at her and wonders for a moment why she’s there in their house at this time of morning before it hits him. She crouches down low to face him. Her blonde hair is hanging loosely over her shoulder, spilling onto the faded blue material of her robe, and she places a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” God, she’s so calm and collected even though she’s just lost her brother, and here he is falling apart over a toothbrush like he’s made of glass.

“I—Raven, I…we had time, Raven. They said he still had five months left. I don’t—we still had five months.” His voice is breaking around the hard lump in his throat.

She pulls him in close, and he can’t see anything but blue. It feels like something is breaking inside his chest, and he can’t breathe anymore. He closes his eyes and leans into the touch, clutching at her back; they must look ridiculous, he thinks, curled up on the floor like children. The water is still running in the sink above their heads.

“We had time, Raven. I don’t understand.”

She takes a deep, shuddery breath that he can feel rattling through his frame. “Sometimes things don’t work out like they should. You did everything you could.”

No, no he didn’t. He could have pushed Charles harder to seek treatment. He could have forced the issue. He could have made sure Charles was happy before he died. He could have used those three weeks like they were all the time they’d had left instead of pretending that there was anything more than that and living in denial.

But that’s stupid; he’s being stupid. Charles wouldn’t have stood for that, and he knows it.

_In sickness and in health, till death do us part._

“I can’t do this, Raven. I can’t do this.”

“We have to keep going, Erik. Charles…he wouldn’t have wanted this for us.”

She’s so put together, and he wants nothing more than to sink into the floor and sleep for a year. Then he wouldn’t be a burden on Raven anymore; she wouldn’t have to deal with him. His eyes are burning, the water is still running, and Charles’s toothbrush lies useless on the floor.

“We still have time, Erik. We have time to make it through this.”


End file.
